Custodians were ranked with scores from one up to a high of seven according to satisfaction in their services including performance measurement reporting, flexibility of reporting method and their handling of complicated or new funds.

Overall satisfaction was 5.76 this year, down 0.01 on last year’s numbers. State Street, in third place, was the only custodian to see a higher ranking with a gain of 0.32 in its score over the year.

Richard Hogsflesh, managing director at R&M, said in a statement: “This year’s survey shows some interesting declines in satisfaction scores as 4 out of the 5 banks achieved lower results than in 2011. First placed JP Morgan was criticised for its poor compliance monitoring, whilst the two bottom firms, Northern Trust and BYN Mellon, were commended in this area, indicating that next year’s results could be quite different as banks respond to increasing regulatory pressure.”

Five custodians took part this year – BNY Mellon, the largest in the world with $27.1 trillion in assets under custody, State Street, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Northern Trust. HSBC, which had come top for a number of years in the past, chose not to participate.

A total of 49 fund managers responded to the survey, which ran between May and July.